Chapter 2 – Rosalie POV

It was an average Saturday morning at the McCarty house: the rush to get my six year old twins Jessica and Alice to their dance class, and make sure my gorgeous husband Emmett got to the yacht club in time for the meeting. He wouldn't go otherwise; he was the youngest one there by about fifty years, but he had to go as his grandfather had set it up and it was his lineage.

When this was done and I was assured by a friend that she would bring Jess and Alice home with her daughter from ballet I had time to myself for cleaning and sorting out any work that needed to be done. It was also a time for me to check my emails from work: being a designer with two children under the age of ten in constant need of attention isn't easy. I worked in London during the week, but there was always stuff that had to be done at the weekends: women had a constant need for clothes!

After I had tidied the bedrooms, hovered the house and checked up on my emails I decided I would have to do a task that I had been prolonging for weeks. Clearing out the attic. It wasn't that I was scared of the dark or mice; it was the fact that there was so much up there that it was impossible to find anything. There were broken baby toys, and random odds and ends; it was like the bric-a-brac stall at the school fete. But, it had to be done so I would do it.

Two hours later and I had successfully cleared one square metre. I sighed and looked at the pile by my feet. Who knew we had so many odd limbs that had once belonged to Barbie in the house. Of course than I had found the box with pictures of the twins and videos in so I had to go through them one by one. In the end I had to watch the videos, and it's astonishing how much of your childrens' past you forget until you've watched the videos. So, I settled down to watch them.

It was a warm day in July and we had the paddling pool out in the garden. At this point in time we didn't have the pool so that was our substitute. The twins were two, nearly three and were at the conversational stage where they started talking incessantly. From then on the chatter never stopped.

Alice and Jess were sat in the pool splashing around and Emmett had the camera. There was him filming me in a deckchair, drink in hand, watching them play, but then he turned it to the girls.

"Alice I have an idea," Jess said to her sister who was the smaller of the two.

"What is it?" Alice asked curiously.

"Let's pop the pool!" Jessica shouted and sunk her teeth into the plastic edge.

Had it been soft and pop able, I'm sure we would have left them, but it was hard plastic. The camera fell to the ground and all you could see was grass as Emmett ran to stop them before they cracked their teeth on the edge.

I smiled as the memory returned after watching this, missing the days when they were utterly dependent on us for everything. Now there was school, and secrets, friends with whom they hated and loved in quick succession and then of course their growing independence.

We had thought of having another baby, but our busy lives prevented us from doing this. My career was taking off and becoming big and Emmett's was busier than ever. If we had another child we would need a nanny, and I couldn't bear the thought of someone else looking after my precious child, and the dreadful thought that the child may prefer them to me. I know it was selfish, but my maternal instinct was overwhelming, even from a young age.

I went back upstairs and carefully worked my way over to the edge of our attic where the boxes were older and could probably be thrown out without looking inside. But, there right at the edge was a lone box with a pink ribbon tied around it.

I picked it up carefully and brought it downstairs onto the landing where I untied the ribbon. Inside was an object wrapped in tissue paper. I unwrapped that and found myself looking at a white photograph album with a metal pram on the front.

I opened it to see the picture Emmett had taken just minutes after she'd been born. My face was red and flushed as was hers, but I looked prouder than I ever had before. In fact I still was proud, but there was an underlying feeling of guilt that hadn't been there before.

I was seventeen at the time, he was eighteen. We were both madly in love, but at the same time ever so naive. Did I ever think that my mother would allow such a scandal in our family? When our daughter came along we were determined that we could manage, but my mother refused. She had only let me keep her that long due to her hate of abortions. She made us put her up for adoption, or she said she would take away all the money my father had left me.

My baby would be fourteen now, with another family. Another mother. Another father. Maybe even other siblings. I hoped they loved her as we did, and cared for her in the same way that she would have been cared for.

My mother died last year, and I knew we should track our baby down. But one question filled me with dread: would she still want us?

I bet you can guess who the baby is! I hope you enjoyed this chapter, and please review as I would love to know what you think!

Thank-you, XxX.